by A. E. Shaw
“Is Alej here?” Aiden asks, irritated by the way Selina does not bow to him and apologise for her appalling conduct, for abandoning him (oh, the revisionism) and for forcing her way into his new home like this, unasked, unannounced.
Selina looks at the ground, as if it might tell her what to say about Alej. It doesn’t.
“No,” she starts, then she can’t help herself but follow up with “he’s with the oth-” and then she stops. What should she say? Are there things she can’t say to Aiden now?
“The others?” he extrapolates, spits, his eyes cluttering with anger. “What others?” How can there be even more than the too-many it already appears there are? I thought my Father had seen to that?
“The others,” Selina repeats, giving up on the idea that she might make something up, because she’s so overwhelmed that nothing will come, and it isn’t as if she’s ever told a lie before, but she doesn’t know the Aiden she is talking to, now; what should she do? Eliza is already looking at her with literal bared teeth. But Eliza doesn’t know Aiden. Aiden wouldn’t hurt anyone, Selina is sure she knows this to be true. Aiden couldn’t hurt anyone (tell that to Jere…). And, she thinks, if he’s here, he’s been captured too, hasn’t he?
Hasn’t he?
Selina’s mind is working backwards, moving slowly, struggling to fit things together. She looks at him in context. At the way Aiden fits into the surroundings. He seems obvious here, just as he always did in the castle. His diamond choker. The opulent buildings behind them. The awed expression the children turned on him when he appeared. This is the situation Aiden has always seemed made for.
She looks at the expression on Aiden’s face, and the way that he’s looking at her, and she consults the way she feels instinctively that he might be on…the wrong side. That he might be on the wrong. Side.
Oh, no…
There we go.
“Selina…” Eliza says, and her voice is gritted. “You understand, don’t you?”
Yes, yes she does. Doesn’t she? (Yes.)
“Did you know?” Selina asks, too horrified to be tearful or even furious. “Did you know?”
Aiden is genuinely unsure as to what she’s talking about. Did he know…what? But he mustn’t be curious. Not of something a liar speaks about.
“Leave,” he says. That about covers it.
“Aiden, please…”
This isn’t fair, she thinks, this isn’t right, and why would he speak to her like this? “Don’t you understand what…”
Things clickclickclick in her mind like dominoes falling all about her. Now she understands.
“You’re his…and we were…” she illustrates the level of her understanding with her lack of coherent speech, and Aiden is ashamed for her inarticulate approach. She truly learnt nothing in all the time she spent with him.
“Leave,” he repeats, and he watches, unimpressed, as Eliza - to Aiden, a dishevelled, filthy being in a terrible set of overalls, which make her look as dirty and insignificant as Selina, who appears only as the ruined and lying version of herself - grabs Selina and starts to pull her back, away from Aiden, hissing words that Aiden closes his ears to, doesn’t want to hear, in case they’re as ill-educated and poisonous as words of a friend of a liar’s are likely to be.
“Come on,” Eliza echoes, “we must go; don’t you understand what we’ve walked into? I have another plan.”
“We can’t just wander outside,” Selina retorts. “These people know we’re here.”
Eliza’s eyes narrow, and she rounds on Selina.
“I can’t believe you brought me here for this,” Eliza hisses, a complete revision of the facts coming, as she conveniently and utterly forgets that this was all her idea, her insistence, her one and only plan in the first place. “You’re on their side, aren’t you?” She’s convinced shes been trapped, feels surrounded and smothered and knows there are truths here that she can’t possibly survive.
Aiden has left. Neither of them saw him go. He didn’t want any more to do with their nonsense. Depressing, sad, unfortunate. They’ll be skinned, Aiden thinks, or shot, or something. Pulsed.
But the Pulse has already sounded for the final time. It can’t offer protection, nor placebo, not any more. That energy has been harnessed and spent, and this age is coming to an end. That it should do so in the hands of those so young, none of whom have the full story in their minds, is the grand illustration of just how dangerous putting absolute power in the hands of so few can be.
Aiden comes marching back in through the doors, luminescent with fury. He has no concept of what to do with this level of anger. He stands in the great hall, and stretches out his arms and looks up, at the grand, domed ceiling, gold decorations spidering out all over it, denoting things Aiden’s never learnt and doesn’t understand. It would make him even angrier, if he processed that too.
From the far end of the hall comes the sound of raised voices and brisk footsteps. His Excellency bursts through distant double doors, demanding hows and whys. His hair is dripping wet, his robes flung hastily about him. Obviously, he was taken by surprise.
Aiden decides, immediately, that his father is at fault for all this, and must be the focus of the anger. He yells his displeasure with a ferocity that surprises even him, for he has never made such loud sounds before.
“Why? Why did you bring them here? I thought they had been ended?”
His Excellency glides up to him at terrifying speed, and looks right down on Aiden, making the most of the few inches of height he has on him.
“This,” he says, so quietly that Aiden wonders if he damaged his own ears with the volume at which he shouted, “is not for you to discuss with me at this time.”
Aiden’s anger is punctured and lost, replaced with a weight of humiliation and confusion.
His Excellency pushes him out of the way, and makes for the outside. Aiden’s squalling has shaken him a little, but this is not obvious from the outside. He doesn’t need to get that far to find the root of the disturbances reported to him as he tried to soak away the lack of sleep, for Selina is already pushing through the door, her filthiness even more evident in the grandeur of the hall. She is obviously shocked to come straight up against a man so vast as His Excellency, but she holds her nerve admirably.
“Sir,” she starts, immediately, her body filling with adrenaline and her mind veering between emptiness, fear and memories of what was and what is no longer.
His Excellency holds up a hand to silence her.
“This is unacceptable,” he says, and Aiden, sidling up behind him, would agree to this. There is no way these people should be allowed here. This is his, and this place is for him and in no corner of it is one single thing that is for Selina, no, so this is not allowed, and yet, and yet, the thing that is keeping him here, behaving as if he were curious when he is only bound to this moment, is the odd knowledge that nothing can now be done to change the course of this day.
The moment Selina opened that door, things felt set, organised, meant, and whilst there is horror to be felt about and around that fact, at the same time, the sense of inevitability is a relief. For too many days Aiden has been confused as to where things are going, wracked with indefinite and indifferent feelings. This time, though, he knows for sure that those feelings will be resolved and that in the shortest matter of time all will become clear, and he will not only know what must be done, but will have the courage and conviction to do it.
Destiny, writ large all over his life, is coming for him, and now he has to be ready and able to accept it, because it won’t wait.
Keep that sense close to you, Aiden, because as things unravel, it’ll be all you have left.
Pulling his robes tighter around himself, His Excellency stares, eyes taut, furied, at them in turn. He steps back and includes Aiden in that too, because, to his mind, the only reason this is happening is because Aiden is a waste.
Then he looks at Eliza, and none of them know His Excellency well enough to u
nderstand the expression that fires up his gaze. It’s a burst of something old and terrible, and it might boil over, but His Excellency is, unlike his son, a great and well-trained man who can contain himself, of course he is, so he contains that, and lets it simmer, just behind his eyes, for now, that there might later be a more dramatic and well-choreographed end to this.
He takes the unpredictability of this situation as further proof that he was right to reduce the number of humans to a minimum; see how even the very few - the chosen few! - come and claim they have the right to speak in his palace. He’d have them taken to the Testing Room now, he would, but there is something even more important than the fact that his son is not the heir and the light that he ought to have been.
“My name,” Selina begins, cracking the heavy silence, and His Excellency makes that sign that Aiden made oh-so-long-ago, clapping a large, gold-ringed hand across his mouth to indicate that she ought to be quiet.
“I know your name,” he says, in a dark and bitter-grit voice, his hand cast aside in contempt. “I know everything about you. Do you think I would forget you? I chose you.”
Selina nods. That he did.
“And what about me?” Eliza says, ignoring the gesture that comes in her direction, too. “Do you know my name?”
“Yes,” His Excellency replies, quick as fire, just as dangerous. “Yes, I know your name, and I also know so much more of you.”
“Liar!” Eliza spits, he has no business knowing of her, how he would he know, there’s nothing to know, but she knows how he knows…why won’t he say more…and that he doesn’t is enough to keep her quiet…for this moment…
“Eliza,” His Excellency says, drawing closer, the name cold against the backs of his teeth, his eyes measuring every aspect of her, “Eliza, I know your name.”
Eliza swallows, sets her teeth. “You’ve overheard. You’ve asked someone. Why should I care?”
If wishing made it so…
“It is enchanting, in its own way, that you even ask that question. But I shall not answer you here, no. And I will not entertain you for so much as a moment longer whilst you stand before me so filthy and bedraggled. I see no humans, only animals, and the animals live within fences and walls, and you have escaped those things, so you must wash and dress as befits such escapees. We shall dine together, the four of us, and perhaps the damage that has been made can be repaired.
“Dine with you?” Eliza counters, her face contorting in spite and fury. “I would ne-” but then Selina moves closer, treading right on Eliza’s toe. It doesn’t hurt, Selina’s foot little more than bare in her wrecks of shoes, Eliza’s fully clad in army boots, but nonetheless, Eliza looks at her, appalled. Selina ignores this, and, with her voice loud, her most polite, and clear, announces:
“We would be honoured to dine with you tonight, Your Excellency. And we beg your humble pardon for appearing before you in this way. If you could point us towards water and any change of clothing, we would be most pleased to adjust our appearance to suit this momentous and gracious occasion.” Gold star to Selina for applying everything she knows of Aiden to his father.
His Excellency looks pleased as if Selina had given him his heart’s desire - and as yet, there’s nothing to suggest that in some way she hasn’t - and he bows a little, expressing his pleasure.
His Excellency continues, “Of course. I will see to it that you have separate quarters, and perfect clothes. My request, however, is that you shall not speak to each other further than this moment. You shall all hear and be heard, but you will not concoct further plans together. You all have parts to play, but they will be of my choosing, not your own.”
In saying this, His Excellency is half right.
Three servants are assigned, one to each, and only Eliza protests, trying to duck the hold and lead and follow His Excellency as he turns his back on them, but her servant was wisely chosen, and he is having none of it, ‘escorting’ her firmly in the opposite direction from Selina to a separate wing of the palace complex.
His Excellency returns to the throne, and takes a moment to collect himself. No, it is not as it was planned, and it is certainly not as he had written it, but perhaps he always knew it would be thus. That sense of fate is not exclusive to Aiden, no. Perhaps, he thinks, it is for the best.
He orders a dinner of the grandest proportions to be concocted. This will be the perfect opportunity to create the kind of showpiece that will be written about by a thousand scribes, a tale that will be told and used to illustrate his excellence for all those generations to come.
He shall have an heir, one way or another, and he shall be recognised and heralded by his son for the wonder and excellence that he is. It is not possible for his blood to have so let him down. He will find proof that his genes and his choices were right and good, and he will rewrite this new past into something that fits the glory and the heritage he is set on leaving this world. He repeats these things to himself, and closes his eyes for a moment, letting the darkness hold his thoughts tight, that it might make them even more likely to be so.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
The Flight
Aiden? That’s Alej’s strongest thought, which comes with a jolt of both recognition and hope as he notices, at last, how much land he can see, how much ground he could cover. If he only had time enough, and the use of the Caracaras…if he could get more of a grip on this machine then, surely, he would be able to find out where the boy had gone? But even as the thought comes, it’s crushed, for the Caracaras travels higher, and higher still, so the ground is so far away that it’s impossible to make out even traces of the splintered city, never mind the shape of Aiden.
By the time clouds come between Alej and the earth, Aiden is completely forgotten. Alej panics. The ideas of ‘up’ and ‘down’ seem lost amidst a sea of fluffy confines. He wipes at the screen, as if they lay across the inside, and he leaps about in his mind for the memory of which lever took him up, that he might throw it the other way and return to earth. His palms are wet with fear, and his fingers seem to have become too large, too clumsy, too stupid, but he bites his lip and stops his mind and reaches out and trusts in his common sense.
The ground comes up to meet him as quickly as it fell away. The Caracaras spirals for a moment, and Alej shouts the most emphatic words he knows at the sensation of his internal organs failing to keep up with the rest of him. Yet, his panic is not for himself. He’s still the best of servants. After all his work, the last thing he wants is for the Caracaras to injure itself.
It doesn’t. It’s too clever for that. It dives and skids and embeds itself in soft, soft earth, and Alej is ludicrously fortunate not to have brought it down into rock and ruin. As earth scatters up and clatters down about the Caracaras, tiny flecks of gold and red and blue light leap about the place, but Alej is too shot through with adrenaline to appreciate the beauty. The flecks are drawn onto the surface of the Caracaras, like moths to a flame, and it consumes them, feeds on them, recharges.
Alej breathes deep, tastes energy and heat and effort in the air about him. So, this machine really can travel. Like nothing he could possibly compare it to.
He releases the screen, and listens, intently, to check for any signs of Pulse. Only the sound of a small breeze, flicking dirt about. He hops out, and the ground is shockingly sturdy beneath his feet. There’s a heat radiating from the Caracaras, and Alej makes his way around it, checking for any signs of damage. There are none.
He is overwhelmed with appreciation of the technology, and incredibly grateful to be back on solid ground, all at once. What, he thinks, must Ali and Kit’s lives be like? To be able to move so quickly, so freely…how incompetent they’ve been, to fail to put this beautiful thing back together, and how good it’s been to them to wait for them. He wraps his arms around the Caracaras’ wing, and it is solid and warm and kind against him.
But what next? For a moment, there’s the idea of taking the Caracaras. Yet Alej doesn’t have the imagination to tak
e that idea past step one.
No, this was an act of service. Time to complete that. Alej, how on earth can you be forgetting yourself?
Giving the Caracaras one last pet, he picks the best direction he can, and sets off in it.
It takes Alej the rest of the day to find his way back. He’s lucky to have gone up, rather than across, and he’s not so far from the edge of the city as he’d assumed, indeed, he’s landed a little closer than the machine’s hiding place.
Ali and Kit are above ground, scraping and foraging for mosses at the outskirts.
“Alej!” Ali calls out, the moment she spies him coming over the trench of rubble that marks a long-disintegrated city wall.
He doesn’t answer, doesn’t quicken his pace, only keeps walking, until he is just too close to them for it to be about right.
“It flies now,” he says, encapsulating everything he has to say in three words.